Transferring microbial population into germ-free mice
produced weight loss without surgery
Changes in the population of microbial organisms in the
gastrointestinal tract may underlie some of the benefits of gastric bypass
surgery, reports a team of researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital
(MGH) and Harvard University. In the
March 27 issue of Science Translational Medicine, the investigators describe experiments in mice
finding that previously observed post-bypass alterations in the microbial
population (also called the microbiota) are caused by the surgery itself, not
by weight loss, and that transferring samples of the changed microbiota to mice
raised in sterile conditions induced weight loss in those animals without
surgery.